Bad Server Spikes!

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:21 am

Ok boys, heres a fun one for you.

Lobster Cage Server ran fine for a good 6 months, now im getting Lag spikes, Terrible ones.

Everyones' ping in the server jumps including mine. My ping is around 20, 30 on my server usually. It shoots up to over 200 sometimes (I'm sitting 6 inches away from it)

It started doing this like 2 weeks ago. I ran through every possible reason, and found none, Everything is normal, no changes have been made to this machine in a month, Im running Windows XP Professional SP2. Hard disk is defraged, no viruses, no spyware, 8% of the cpu is being used and only using 222mb of the page file. I'm doing nothing out of the ordinary. I havent made any major change to the system eccept for reformatting but that was 3 months ago.

Have fun! and thank you

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:48 am

Are you sure you uninstalled all viruses and worms?

Also, how often is the server getting restarted, both the game server and the whole computer?

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:02 am

Yes im positive, i havent downloaded anything or have gone anywhere than the usual. come to think of it i havent downloaded anything or have given this system a chance to encounter anything serious since ive reformated.

I restart the system as a whole once every 3 days, or unless it crashes. Then i restart it.

Could the Master Server play apart in it at all? as Farfetched as it sounds....

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 8:05 am

I wonder what the chances are that all 4 master servers are pinging each server at the same time, sort of a little DDOSing.

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 8:40 am

I thought about if i was being DDossed, but I changed my ip, i dont think it would be caught on that fast. Would it be something with the config files? Like score record getting to large or something pointless and stupid like that? I'm just grabbing stuff out of thin air cause im completly stumped. Everything was fine until two weeks ago. Which even then i did nothing to it.

Post by **Lucifer** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 8:52 am

YOu know, I ran into the same thing. About two weeks ago my wireless network started failing randomly, huge lag spikes, all sorts of weird network stuff. Maybe there's extra sunspot activity or something.

Umm, check your process list. FIre up a client in one window and a process list in the other and watch. When your ping spikes, look at the process list and see what's highest. This is really the symptom of a process that is sleeping most of the time, but periodically wakes up, sucks all the CPU time, then goes back to sleep.

Also, are you on a cable network?

And last but not least, did you reset your router?

meriton · Post by **meriton** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 2:34 pm

Perhaps you could find out whether it is a server or a network problem by using a network monitoring program (such as etherreal)? At least, you would then know where to look for the problem(s).

iceman · Post by **iceman** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 3:14 pm

are you sure someone isnt running one of those stupid online prog's that polls the servers to see whos in and display a list ?

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:53 pm

I already tried reseting the modem. Im on DSL I'm connected through USB directly to the modem. I sat there and monitored Task Manager and even ran the cheesey Connection Rate Java Applet my ISP provides, I'd let it run for about 15 minutes, every 5 minutes id ask how the lag is. Either they say it was normal or it was terrible, If they said terrible I'd check the task manager and the connection monitor and it would show nothing that would convince me there is a rogue software having its little fun. I check the other computers on the network, I disconnected them and ran the server to see what would happen and it still did the same thing.

Gomes said he was getting this sort of a problem every now and then, perhaps its a local thing, but it doesnt act related, mine perks up too violently.

I'm hoping its one of those bugs that just eventually go away

and that its not my computer thats the problem because everytthing is telling me it isn't so I'm stumped!

If this continues for a month, im going to reformat again. If nothing changes after that I'm contacting the ISP, and if nothing is cleared up by then I'm pulling the server.

Thats the last resort, I'd like for that sentence to never see the light of day.

Walking Tree · Post by **Walking Tree** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:57 pm

seing the light of day is a waste anyway when you got a comp

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:10 pm

Alright after doing more tests.

1 Ghosts are involved, Pirate ones, With little skeleton parrots and all that make wise cracks.

2 The lag meter might be broken on this client. any one wanna look into that?

I mean im watching it spike, i get opinions on it, they said everything is fine.

UPDATED: 3 People from europe now bog the server more than usual...

UPDATED: 4 Ping Charity shot up to 500, and Gcycle is freaking out. cause there is so much lag.

This kind of remidsn me of the movie Outbreak.

DrJoeTr0n · Post by **DrJoeTr0n** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:37 pm

Nemo found it, He will give more detailes but after him doing the tests, that we did, i have proof that this is it.

Post by **dlh** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:03 pm

Maybe iF is unknowingly DOS-ing a few servers with his program? How often does your program update, iF?

I ran a test to query for the server information, and well, no surprise the server lagged bad! But my test was very extreme, I was doing 6325 queries/second; 1 query/second -- no lag. 1/0.5 s -- no lag; 1/0.1s -- no lag.

Other servers should also be having this problem if iF's program is indeed updating server statuses quickly:
* CVS Fortress
* Iceman's Nuke Zone
* Laura Epsilon's High-Speed
* MicrobusCity
* Speed and Rubber only for Diehards
* Swampland in 0.2.7.1
* Sylv's Tavern
* the Untouchables
* Tiger's Network Armagoshdarn Clone
* Tiger's Classic Play
* Tiger's Speed Blast

Post by **Tank Program** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:28 pm

Iceman was reporting unusual lag on his Nukezone a short while ago... And maybe there's some on TN too. All 5 are on the same box. In fact, I've noticed that I've been getting lag on my connection lately at random times. Would pinging 5 servers hugely do evil stuff?

joda.bot · Post by **joda.bot** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:57 pm

@nemo: If's ArmaBell does use a cached list hosted by himself.

There shoud not be an DoS from ArmaBell AFAIK.